To develop Non-Judgmental Self Awareness, imagine making friends with someone. To get to know this individual, you ask questions to learn about them from a place of authentic curiosity. This step is important because as we move forward, you are going to redefine your relationship with yourself. This is a statement to help guide the process of redefining your relationship with yourself and how you experience your emotions.
“I am getting to know myself and I am not the enemy.” I understand what it is to be utterly angry, disappointed, upset, pissed off, ashamed, and hopeless about my actions and behaviors. Shame, regret, and anger at ourselves are powerful emotions that also feel like absolute truth statements. They are very intense emotions and the stronger we feel an emotion, the more true we think it is. Emotional reasoning says “I feel it so it must be true,” however that is not a factual statement! Additionally, a lot of people don’t feel like they know themselves because they haven’t felt safe just having a conversation with themselves like a friend would, especially when it comes to their emotions. We talk crap to ourselves all the time and act like that’s okay. We can afford to learn to be kind in how we speak to ourselves. We have so many unhelpful and unspoken rules that we follow. It’s time to break those rules and treat our emotions like a friend by just getting curious about them, asking yourself questions about why you feel the way you do without judgment. The idea is creating self-awareness and insight, not more self-judgment and shame. Set aside a few moments throughout the day to check in with yourself by putting yourself first and identifying how you feel. A feelings wheel is a great way to help you learn emotional vocabulary and identify emotional experiences. Too often, many people oversimplify how they feel, but you are not going to minimize yourself anymore. You are worth getting to know. Your emotions, even when they are uncomfortable, are worth identifying, feeling and expressing. Emotions are giving you important information, and if you know how to read the language, it begins to make sense. I’m going to throw one more thing in here: Resist the impulse to take responsibility for how other people feel. It’s time for you to focus on your needs first, and the urge to take responsibility for the feelings of others is not a healthy boundary.
This approach is also how you start to become a friend to yourself. Friends communicate with and actively listen to friends. You are not the enemy. Your emotions are not the enemy. You are worth getting to know, and you are going to learn so much about yourself!
